Oxygen (Alt Power Taylor)
by tsukishima7
Summary: Oxygen, it is the third most abundant element in the universe after Hydrogen and Helium. Most organic lifeforms use it for cellular respiration and most can't live without it. Now I control it.
1. 01: Breathe

EXE

Oxygen, it is the third most abundant element in the universe after Hydrogen and Helium. Most organic lifeforms use it for cellular respiration and most can't live without it.

I took it for granted as most people do but I started to understand how important it was after I accidentally killed some mice experimenting with my powers.

Powers, that was something I would never have thought off having since the incident. At first, I thought I was imagining things when I felt a breeze around me at constant flux.

Then I found out I could control it as easily as you can breathe. Experimentation showed me that I could create a whirlwind with some light application of my powers. I wanted a hurricane but I doubt I could test that anytime soon.

Pressure, oxidation and all known allotropes of oxygen are in my control including water. Even transmutation of oxygen is possible with some effort. I can turn metal into rust at incredible speeds by fusing red trioxygen to iron and creating oxides which I can control.

I can also create a light vacuum by shifting pressure and collapse it to create shockwave explosions without the heat. My hearing would have been destroyed in that test if I haven't turned the energy of motion into dissipating heat.

I also can create something I could call Diffusion-Oxygen. A type of oxygen that diffused into all materials I subjected it to. Accelerating it at high speeds it could destroy anything in its wake. Even dense metal and rock is wasted away without resistance.

My favorite application though is flight. As I am currently levitating above the clouds and keeping the pressure and oxygen levels in stable condition.

The stars looked so bright and beautiful so high in the air. It made me almost forget that we are living in a hellhole. People will try to ignore it but when the Nine and the Three still exist with the rest of the rampant crime around the world made me think otherwise.

Looking down back to Brockton Bay after I blew the clouds kilometers away I think this is what my power should be used for. The betterment of mankind... Even if I'm going to dirty my hands. My father deserved that much. With or without his approval.

Flying further into the sky I reach the mesosphere and went a bit further into space, holding myself in a geosynchronous orbit. Unclasping my messenger bag I pull out the thermos with my father's ashes and thought of his sudden death with dimmed emotions.

It wouldn't matter anymore, either way. I am going to avenge him and fix the city just as he wanted.

Turning a small portion of the oxygen around me into red oxygen-17, I spin a coil with it to create an electromagnetic charge. I float the thermos into the center and watch it get caught up by the magnetic field and accelerated to a small percentage of the speed of light to parts unknown. It was an anti-climatic event as the universe deemed it to be, as no sound penetrated my oxygen bubble, all I saw was the metal projectile instantly vanishing from my vision.

Turning to my right I felt the angel shaped void in lower orbit facing me and I promised myself I would destroy them with my Diffusion-Oxygen once I figure out the mechanics of the element and how effective it will be on Endbringer flesh.

And it might have been my imagination but I think I felt the Simurgh inch away from me for a moment. Ignoring that tidbit I leave the Mesosphere and fall back down while stabilizing the oxygen inside and outside my body to ignore the extreme g-forces I'm subjecting myself to.

EXE

In the last two hours flying, I found nothing of interest in my city. Normally there would be at least one idiot who would do something stupid somewhere but its been awfully quiet the last few hours.

Feeling the air around me I found a large gathering of people in the east end of the city where the ABB territory is. Being curious I flew over the area and amplified the vibrations coming from the area into my ear.

"…the children, just shoot. Doesn't matter your aim, just shoot. You see one lying on the ground? Shoot the little bitch twice more to be sure. We give them no chances to be clever or lucky, understand?" A voice yelled which I presume is Lung.

Though I doubt the brain-dead binomials are willing to kill preteen children I can't give them the benefit of the doubt considering who they are. I'm sure intervening just to be sure is a no brainer.

Lowering myself to visibility I grasp their attention by creating a small shock wave around me. Some jumped at the sound and looked around for the disturbance before one finally found me and called out his friends to my location.

Lung turned to face me and yelled out to my place above him.

"Who are you? You are disturbing gang business so fuck off before you regret playing hero!"

I would have been afraid by his proclamation if it weren't for the fact that I can cut off his cellular respiration and implode him in less than a second. Manton limits pointless in the face of my superior knowledge of material physics. It makes me grateful that my mother had a doctorate in physics with some knowledge on some other subjects other than English. I also have a solid black-red oxygen armor on that I can manually manipulate to disperse kinetic and thermal energy that can protect me to up to a gigajoule of energy. More if I made it bigger. Call me a nerd if you want.

Stopping the oxygen from going into their bronchioles in their lungs I watch them grasp their throats and panic as they suffocated. Lung tried to ramp up but his cells still needed oxygen to function. By stopping the oxygen from diffusing into his mitochondria and creating ATP from the glucose/oxygen reaction he might as well be running on hydrogen for the good it did.

He grew but the energy to move was lowered to nothing and the brain can only go so long without oxygen so he fell with the rest of the gang.

Lifting up the gang into a pile I grab some iron rods from a nearby building and force it around their legs and arms and use some vacuum welding to bind them together for insurance in case they can gather the strength to bend rebar.

As the group on the mounts finally arrived after I sensed them a few minutes ago, I turn to their entrance and see a group of capes on what I can only describe as lizard dogs hybrids that reminded me of the Earth Aleph Hulk movie dogs.

"Wow, made them unconsciousness in one fell swoop. No effort required, Oxygen deprivation? That's some power you have" the girl in a tight purple catsuit answered.

The guy in the skull helmet went forward and waved at me.

"Greetings, we're the Undersiders. I'm Grue and girl just now is Tattletale. The other girl is Bitch, Hellhound if you want the pc version. And last but certainly least is Regent"

Although I have never heard of them I can't help but feel there is something slightly off about them.

"Fuck you, Grue" The Renaissance era reject told him with a slight chuckle.

After a few moments of silence, he broke it with a question.

"Hey, are you okay?"

looking at him I instinctually grasp my throat where my larynx has been ruined by the trash pushed down my esophagus.

"She isn't hurt, she is mute" The girl told Grue with some slight amusement in her tone.

A bit agitated by her words I grasp the oxygen around us and create the correct sequences of vibrations manifesting as a loud symphony of sound.  
 **  
"I CAN SPEAK JUST FINE!"  
**  
"Ah shit my ears!" Regent hissed out while holding his ears.

"Damnit! Lower the volume girl!" Tattletale yelled to me.

Feeling a bit smugger about my non-disability I stopped using the holy sound and turned my head to the guy in a motorcycle coming here a few blocks away.

"Shit, the heroes are coming, best you run before they catch you, girl!" Tattletale informed me.

Bitch whistled to the dogs and they left in a rush. Scratching my head thinking over the confusing events just now. Though I now got the fact that they're not heroes and most likely some villains. But I hate labeling people into categories before I actually know them so I reserve judgment. I refocus back to the situation at hand and tied down the rest of the gang just as the guy arrives. Which is Armsmaster as I finally figured out.

Walking away from his bike he came to me with his halberd drawn.

"You gonna fight me?" He grunted out.

Though that question made sense in its most logical form I think he hasn't yet grasped the subtleties of politeness. Not taking his words as an insult I merely resorted back to my manual voice generation.

 **"NO, I AM A VANGUARD OF THE PEOPLE"  
**  
A hero is rather vague and idealized so I rather took a title that is more descriptive of my function. Though he didn't really look amused at the sudden sound from everywhere nor from my words.

"What was that?" He grunted while glancing around.  
 **  
"I AM MUTE, THIS IS THE ONLY WAY I CAN TALK"  
**  
"Fine, that is acceptable" He said to me with an agitated tone that contradicted his statement.

He walked to the restrained Lung and poked him with his halberd.

"You did this?" He asked of me.

 **"YES"  
**  
"You got a name?"

 **"Qwaser"** I told him using a name that doesn't reveal my powers as most capes like to do.

"What did you do to them? They seem to show signs of suffocation" He remarked.

 **"I AM NOT AT LIBERTY TO EXPLAIN YOU THE COMPLEX INTRICACIES OF MY POWER, I AM LEAVING NOW"  
**  
Tired of his questions I flew upwards to my home but was stopped by Armsmaster yelling at me.

"Wait! You can't just fly away like that! Who gets the credit for taking in Lung!"

 **"I DO NOT CARE, I'M ONLY INTERESTED IN CLEANING UP THIS CITY. I DON'T NEED FAME TO DO MY JOB"  
**  
Leaving him to do his job I flew upwards to the sky into my artificial self-sustaining dark rain cloud where complex pressure waves and hydrogen kept a solid oxygen box into place. My powers have a reach as far as the horizon so it didn't take much effort to manually hold it up in place without a thought. Entering the box I saw Emma sulking on her back on the carpet blanketed floor until she saw me. She grew a fearful and guilty look before she nervously smiled at me.

"H-Hey Taylor. Did you have a good time doing c-cape stuff?" She managed with less stutter this time after I told her how much I disliked it.

Walk up to her I joined her on the floor and hugged her on my side.

"It was good, I defeated Lung today" I managed with a slight application of my power instead of the loud booming voice.

Her eyes widened but I ignored that and closed my eyes. After a while, Emma rested her head on my shoulder and her oxygen intake lowered.

"Don't worry Emma, I'll take care of you now. Forget about being strong. I'll take that responsibility for myself"

"I'll also forgive you about dad if you stay with me"

She tightened a bit when I mentioned dad. But relaxed once I didn't deprive her of her precious oxygen. It was called a torture technique for a reason.

EXE


	2. 02: Inhale

If you don't like "boring power wanks" then read my fic "The things we hate" on SpaceBattles. I promise you will like it ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

EXE

Dad wasn't there for me when I got thrown into a trash can and rolled off a hill into a landfill. He wasn't there when I suffocated on carbon dioxide gasping for nonexistent dioxygen with a mouthful of trash.

But I don't blame him for that, it is hard to blame a soulless shell after all.

Though in the end, he tried to help me when he noticed I was gone for three days. I observed him from a distance while testing my powers. He reported my disappearance to the police, gaining nothing in return after five days. Then he tried some investigating on his own. I didn't know how he figured it out. Maybe it was the constant contacting to the parents of Winslow students, or the money he threw away to the private investigators. But he found out about Emma's and Sophia's involvement with my disappearance.

He must have tried to approach them on information of my location and got spun up in the weave of intrigue. They say it was an accident, but I know better. I could sense, but not interfere when the air oxidized near his skin with some other person near him watching as he burned. My powers were still relatively new and I haven't yet got the control to reach that far to the other side of the city. Maybe if I was a bit faster at learning I could have saved him. My intellect be damned.

Turning the light on in what I call the Mother Box, I woke with Emma with her head on my stomach. I wasn't afraid of her hurting me when I'm asleep considering we are a few dozen kilometers in the air. I don't need to tell you what will happen once I perish.

It also was quite a process to create light without electricity. I resorted to splitting oxygen and hydrogen from water and igniting the two mixtures in a small but continuous process. I was guessing where the energy came from to ignite the mixture but then I thought of my oxykinesis producing energy from out of nowhere. Enough to lift all the air as far as my eye can see. I initially thought it came from an exothermic reaction but that's not enough energy to do what I do. I gave up after a while as I don't have any expensive equipment to study it but I promised I will try to understand it later when I got the money.

Standing up I moved to another section of the Mother Box. Condensing water from the air and letting it fall on my naked form. Letting my hair fall over my face I started to contemplate if what I'm doing is really right. I only had to resort to desperate measures to find out what happened to her. While I found that she disproved of Sophia killing my father, I still feel a tiny bit of regret.

But looking down to my artificial legs I created from scratch after I amputated them dispelled that guilt by a tiny fraction. It was quite handy I could create sterile vacuums to my wounds and use oxygen scrubbing or else I would have died in that trash heap a long time ago.

Reforming my crystallized oxygen armor I open a hole in the Mother Box and flew down to the city to get breakfast. I had found my father's reserve money under the closet floor panel and it would last a few months if I only wanted food. For now, it will make do until I found something I could do to get more money.

Spoiler: Solid Oxygen armor by me

Finding what I looked for, I landed near the boardwalk in front of John's Sandwiches. Entering the building I saw some people watching me in trepidation. Ignoring that I walked up to the counter and stared at the cashier who was nervously smiling at me.

"Hi, I'm C-Cassie. How m-may I help you today?" She asked me with an uneven tone.

"Two spicy tuna sandwiches, one vegetarian, and the strawberry jam chocolate special, please" I asked politely. No sense being rude.

She looked a bit relieved when I said that and got right to her cash register.

"All right ma'am that be t-twenty ninety nine" She asked with less stutter this time. The rest of the people also went along their way with some glances at me.

While the order went through the back I reached into my messenger bag and floated the necessary money to the counter. Cassie grabbed it after an initial pause.

She got my order after a few minutes and handed it to me in a bag.

"Here you go ma'am, t-thank you for your patronage"

Leaving the business behind me, I flew back into the sky to the Mother Box. Where I think Emma should be awake by now.

Entering the box, I see her lying on the cushions trying to read a book while listening to some music from her phone. You might be thinking that it wasn't smart leaving her, her phone but I removed the sim card when I got her and solid red oxygen-17 is a good electromagnetic isolator as I found out. Though you'll find it hard to find wifi this far up in the sky.

"Emma" I called out to her.

She got startled and dropped the book. Looking at me in surprise but relaxed once she saw it was me.

"Hey Taylor" She said with a smile.

"I got breakfast" I said while lifting the bag.

"Great" She beamed.

We all fell down to the blanketed bouncy mess that was the floor and ate our breakfast in silence. Me with my spicy tuna and her with her vegetarian. But she broke that silence after a moment.

"Taylor"

Turning my head to her I nodded in acknowledgment while mouth was still full.

"I love you"

Gulping down the rest of the sandwiches I answered her back.

"I love you too"

She didn't answer me back and we lapsed into more silence again as we usually do.

"I want to leave Mother Box"

Looking at her I saw no uneven oxygen intake and responded to her

"You know you can't go home. I can take stuff from your house but that's all I'm willing to-"

"No, no. I want to take a walk with you, Taylor. It gets claustrophobic here sometimes and I really want to see some other things than this tri-colored interior"

Thinking about her request it didn't seem that unreasonable. So giving her the benefit of the doubt I acquiesced to her request.

"Fine, But you'll wear my armor too. We are both missing after all. I don't want some gawker to report my persona and ostracize me" I sighed out.

"That's okay, I want you to trust me Taylor. I won't betray you again" She said while smooching my cheek.

Thinking about the way she said with so much guilt and adoration was a bit disturbing but it at least was better than the monster that used to be my friend.

"We will go down in the afternoon. I'll also need to check if I can buy a laptop and manage to create an electromagnetic connection below to the city. I have tested it myself but I can't be sure that'll it will work"

"That sounds... Complicated"

"Only if you want it to be. Everything is more simple once you stop thinking it is complicated"

She didn't try to bother question my genius and merely rested her head on my shoulder again.

EXE

Walking through the park we received some looks but it seemed it was mostly curiosity rather than fear. It wasn't that common that you see capes walking down the park holding hands after all. We got accosted by a police officer awhile ago but it isn't exactly illegal to dress up in public and taking a walk so he let us go.

Emma was a bit happier as I sensed but a bit mitigated by the armor. Even if it conforms perfectly to the body and keep a comfortable temperature it still gives off a feeling of isolation from the rest of the world. It was good for feeling protected but a claustrophobic would probably find it extremely uncomfortable. If I couldn't create fresh mountain air inside the armor it would be a lot worse.

Sitting down the bench we watched the small pond for some birds flying on it. Gotten bored of that I pulled the water up to air using the oxygen inside it and froze it into a statue of us together holding the world in our hands. Armor unneeded as I doubt they could do a facial match with an ice sculpture.

"Whoa! That's so cool Taylor. But I thought you could only manipulate oxygen?" She asked me with an awed and inquisitive tone.

"Water molecules are oxygen and hydrogen atoms combined. It isn't that hard to find it in it and control it as easily as any other forms of oxygen" I answered her with my teaching voice.

"I se-"

But she got interrupted by Oni appearing before us and him unpinning something from his bandolier. Exploding into a miasma of what I cold describe as some type of plasma. We got thrown a few feet back before my powers compensated and dispersed the energy. I heard a scream from Emma and muted it to focus around me for his location.

Moving Emma at my back I finally found a person disappearing and appearing onto the roof on my right. Feeling a bit angry that he tried to hurt Emma while we are having a nice moment so I ripped the oxygen from his cells and sensed him explode into chunks. If this was a book I would have complained about it being too sudden but this real life. Contrary to what books may say, nobody is immortal. Everyone can die in the most sudden of ways. The only way to mitigate that is creating thousands of contingencies. Even then a micro black hole moving at a fraction of the speed of light can rip you apart at any time without warning.

Focusing back to Emma I cut off her oxygen supply by a few percent to let her stop hyperventilating and opened her helmet for a moment.

"Emma, Emma! Calm down! I took care of him so you don't need to worry anymore" I said to her with a forceful tone.

Her breathing returned to normal after a few minutes and she looked at me in the eyes.

"I want to go back to Mother Box" She said with a teary face.

Not liking the expression she has on her face I vowed to completely destroy ABB even if I got to rip the foundations of this city out to the sky.

"Don't worry Emma, you go back to Mother Box, And I'll take care of the ABB and the Empire so that we can walk freely without the threat of the gangs" I promised her.

Manually lifting her up and moving her back to MB, I flew up to the center of the city and try to truly sense the scope of things. The information was a bit too much to handle but I persevered. Finding an air filled space with beakers and oxidizing hot plates manned by people with weapons I locked on to the location and flew at maximum speed while minimizing the shockwave.

Breaking the walls of the warehouse with my shoulder, I saw the people pause for a moment before a smart one tried to shoot at me. I reversed the pressure in the chamber and watched as the gun exploded in his hand. The rest tried to follow but I pulled the guns into a pile and threw the people to the walls where they fell in debilitating pain. Searching for the most important guy in this whole mess I sensed a guy trying to escape from another room that seemed important.

Breaking the window of the room with a strong gale. I flew in and grabbed the throat of the mildly fat guy choking and grabbing my arm in desperation,

"Who is the current leader of the ABB!"

"Ba-Bak,ughda!" He tried to say.

Relieving him from some of the pressure on his throat I asked him once again.

"It is bakuda! Oni! Bakuka!" He yelled.

"Where is she!" I asked him with more force.

"Mason street! The rest being no know, Oni!" He said with that name again

Throwing him to the ground as the rest of the suffocated from my previous use of my power. I did the same for him. Finding a phone nearby I called the police and flew away to this Bakuda he was talking about.

EXE


	3. 03: Exhale

EXE

Reaching the location given to me. I start to search through all the buildings. I don't know what Bakuda's power is, but I assumed I will at least find something indiscriminating.

Starting with the most high-end establishments I search through them for anything before I finally found something most unusual. It was an element I could sense but only nudge by a tiny bit no matter how much power I applied to it.

Landing on the roof of the building, I start to sense inside it to see what forces there are in the two story car shop.

Two females, seven males. One seemed to work at a machine at which function I cannot comprehend next to the unknown element. She started to insert the element in the machine so I put a stop to that by halting the oxygen intake of the inhabitants.

A sudden explosion then destroyed the backside of the building, startling me for a tiny bit before continuing the suffocation of the people inside. I didn't sense any fire in the explosion so I didn't have to stop any fires but I put up a force field up just in case people stumble upon it. Testing a new application of my power I created a dense pressurized elongated spike of oxygen with an atomic point. Pushing the spike through the roof I felt absolutely no resistance even with the force of a feather's weight. Moving it into a circle I let the floor fall to the ground and flew into the room.

Seeing a masked female lying unconscious on her desk I ignored her in favor of the unknown element. Any attempt at moving it proved fruitless. Though I could pick the carbon-copper casing of it just fine with my hand and any external oxygen. I pushed in some oxygen atoms through the gaps between the copper atoms and reached to the unknown element before it promptly got sent somewhere incomprehensible. It was like ocean worths of oxygen lying in a single spot. It wasn't Diffusion-Oxygen either as even that still has volume.

Being rather baffled by this nonsense I looked around the room for a moment. I found an altered electron microscope on the desk and some other expensive equipment lying around. Thinking about it, I needed some equipment to find out where my power came from. I refused to accept that I'm a free energy generator that could magicked oxygen somehow.

Changing my plans a bit I lifted Bakuda and the equipment through the hole on the roof. With the intelligence of a tinker and her stuff, I'm sure I will get through to the eluding secret. And if she didn't comply I had special measurements I can use to convince her.

Exiting the hole alongside with her I heard the emergency services coming to the area. Seeing the use of being rather discrete but still rather impatient I created a copycat of myself to answer the people below while I'm flying back to Mother Box.

I might have questioned me being able to create a separate functioning entity while still being to focus myself but the processing power needed for my activities is already too much to really try to question it. Bakuda will have to figure it out once she came to.

EXE

Entering the Mother Box I expanded it to create another room. Putting all the equipment and Bakuda into it I saw Emma looking at me with slightly teary eyes.

"D-did you take care of them?" She asked me nervously.

Remembering that ABB gangsters once tried to assault her I started to understand her reaction to returning here. Feeling pity for her I drew her into an embrace and let her repressed tears and emotions to come out.

"Don't worry, they should be in too much of disarray to focus on us. I should have taken out all the heavy hitters in the gang so they shouldn't be able to reach us"

"W-who was the girl you put in the other room?" She asked me.

"That was Bakuda, the current ABB leader apparently. I think I should be able to completely dismantle the ABB with her knowledge"

"Are you... Are you gonna?..." She said with some trepidation.

"Yes, if I really need to" I answered her with a tiny bit of guilt.

"That's... That's okay" She muttered while glancing down.

Feeling a bit down by her gloomy mood I took one of the laptops from the equipment and booted it up in front of me. Testing out the superconducting category 5 simulacrum I connected it to my house ethernet router. It should still be working for another week so I could still use it. Seeing the connection I put the laptop down while Emma watched with an expectant expression. I gave her the answer she needed as I set up the laptop.

"You can use it, I connected it to the internet in my home so you should be able to use it before I need another internet provider"

She grew a big smile and hugged me with surprising strength.

"Thanks Taylor! I won't betray your trust!"

I seriously hope so. Anyways, letting Emma do her thing I moved to the other room and start to wake up my guest. Well, that was the plan but I got distracted by the unknown element again.

"What are you?" I muttered while moving it near my face for deeper inspection.

Getting an idea I moved a chain of oxygen atoms near the edge of the element and closed it in by a few femtometres. Suddenly an energy intensive reaction occurred and I isolated the affected oxygen to throw it out on the floor where it ionized before my heat dissipation dispersed the energy.

"Did the oxygen just lose one of its electrons? That's impossible..." I muttered while staring back at the element container.

Observing it further I think the size of the element just increased by a few microns. Letting me control it a little but not enough to counter the weight of the container. Getting another idea I moved it into another room where I sucked out all the thermal energy out of it. Moving oxygen atoms near it in a continuous stream. The room gets filled with charged ions which I eject it out to the atmosphere to disperse without my assistance.

Focusing back to Bakuda I removed anything metallic on her. I didn't care about her secret identity so I also removed her mask alongside a set of rings on her toes. Kicking her in the ribs I watch her groan and groggily started to prop herself up near a wall. Thinking that she needs some intimidation I created demonic versions of my armor around her, with horned heads and more pronounced inner skeletons.

"Wake up Bakuda" I whispered into her ear with my power.

She started and turned around to me. Seeing me and my automatons she skirted further into a wall in fear. She suddenly got a surprised expression and reached for her face.

"Who-who the fuck are!" She yelled at me.

"I am Qwaser, Oni Lee came to me and I don't appreciate that fact. He's dead now"

"Fuck you bitch! I don't believe you!"

She looked around in the room and grew a bit more fearful as her oxygen intake indicated. Seeing one of her stuff near her she tried to leap for it but I halted her in the air before she did.

"Let me out of here you bitch! You'll pay for this!" She screamed while struggling in her oxygen holds.

"Oh no, you will give me all the knowledge you have and you aren't leaving anytime soon" I said to her with a calm tone that contradicted my intent.

EXE

Leaving Bakuda to her labored breathing I leave the room to a partition I made after she tried to get her equipment again. Moving the unknown element container from the charged environment to my hands I now know what it is. Bakuda alluded it being a particle that exists in multiple dimensions that swapped states between them. A group of the particles generated a small warped space to the other dimensions to create unbridled density once powered. To think that she only wanted to a create bomb with it is profoundly stupid. But considering that she herself didn't understand it, I didn't let it get to me.

The now identified singularity is something I could probably use to kill the Endbringers but it wasn't ready yet for initial testing. It needed to grow a bit more before its effect is greater and it seemed I could sense further into it when it grew. Leaving the container back into storage I left the holding area for the main room.

"Hey Emma" I called out to her.

She turned around from the laptop and grew a hesitant smile when she saw me.

"Did-did you do it?" She whispered at me.

I nodded at her and sat down with her to watch her looking at a PHO page on my appearance. It seemed I needed to be more aware around me as the video was from an adjacent building where I incapacitated Lung and the gang. The comments seemed inane as usual so I ignored it in favor of searching the threads for other pieces of information.

Seeing a thread called 'Hey oxygenated dragon slayer' I open it and found a message to me saying to contact him or her.

"What is it Taylor?" Emma asked me.

"I don't know, I think it's the group of villains who came to me for some reason and left when Armsmaster came to the scene"

Sending a private message to HateMaster69 I received a message back with a location for a meetup on Sunday. Although they didn't seem that villainy when I met them, they must be pretty balsy to meet up with me. Although it's possible they confused me for a villain.

"Should I meet up with them?" I asked Emma.

"I don't know, you should be careful if you do"

"That didn't need to be said" I said with some amusement.

Standing back up I thought about the location of the Mother Box for a while now. While it's pretty hard to reach and see twenty kilometers into the sky, it wasn't exactly inconspicuous if you got the right fringe devices such as telescopes. For that reason, I have been slowly growing the base and pushing it further into the sky. We are above the ozone layer by now and I'm not stopping anytime soon. Pressure and air aren't a problem so I am not worried about it too much.

I tried to warp the air to bend light around us to hide but that needed a subtle approach. Even then it won't fool anyone with the correct technology. I also thought of going underground too but I don't feel very comfortable without a lot of oxygen around after the whole stuffed into a trash can thing.

I first thought that I needed to simulate gravity when we are in space but now that I think about it, we are still falling to the ground. The fact that holding the Mother Box in space above Brockton shouldn't really affect our rate of descend by much.

"Taylor. why am I feeling heavier?" Emma asked me.

Oh, I forgot to tell her. I really need to start expressing my intent before I do something. Stopping our ascent, Emma stopped expressing strain and I suddenly felt a light feeling of nausea.

"I am moving us into artificial orbit. I thought it will work better to hide us. Sorry for not telling you first"

"Ah, okay. Wait what?!" She yelled at me in incredulity.

"Just I said. We are in space" I answered her.

"Won't the Simurgh do something?!" She asked me with some urgency.

"I don't think so. I tried it a couple of times and all the Simurgh ever did was look at me. And if she tried to come here I will move sky to stop her. I am tired of being afraid of monsters and I'm willing to provoke her to prove it"

She seemed more subdued now that I said that to her and she embraced me in a sudden gesture. Crying on my shoulder.

"I'm sorry Taylor"

Although I felt great with the showing of affection I question what she is being sorry for. I've already forgiven her for awhile.

"Why are you sorry?" I asked her.

"I am the one who made you this way. Please return back to your normal self. I don't think you are weak!"

Finally getting at to what she's saying I can't help but feel a bit sad at myself.

"You know it's too late for that, I can't change back to what I was. I think we are both sorry on how this turned out"

EXE

Didn't like this chapter.


	4. 04: Suffocation

Not really something I wanted to do in an AN but Taylor's power isn't Oxygen control. It's control over the 4 fundamental forces. She's only being limited by her own perceptions of her power. The reason I introduced the element/compound/event horizon is so that I can give her a way to reach the source of her power in case she needs it. And it isn't a shard, it's Russian and ends with brain and network.

Also, why does autocorrect always want me to change 'the rapist' to 'therapist'.

EXE

Twisting the neck of the apparent ABB rapist, I turn to the victim cowering into a corner of the abandoned warehouse. The fear is still palpable even after the kidnapper was disposed of but I guess her higher functions is rather defunct at the moment. Grabbing the no longer needed pants from the rapist, I throw it at her so that she can replace her ruined skirt. Grabbing the phone from the corpse I dial in 911 and wait for dispatch to pick up.

"911 dispatch, what is your emergency?" A female voice answered.

"Hello, I'm here to report an attempted sexual assault. I've stopped the individual from doing much harm but the victim may need emergency services" I said in a professional tone. It won't do to sound like an idiot who doesn't know what she's doing

"I understand Madam, can I have the location please so that we can send in help"

"Its Windshore D23 in an abandoned steelworks warehouse"

"Please stay on s- Beep" She started to say but I hang up and threw the phone to the woman who still sat in the corner staring at me with dead eyes.

While I might felt somewhat for her at the moment there is nothing I can do for her as I'm not a psychiatrist. Leaving her to do her thing I flew out the window.

It's been a few days after I captured Bakuda and held her in confinement to work with me. I've also learned that the element wasn't a thing as it was an event. Apparently, she had the ability to create a black hole with it. Or at least that's what she claimed as she never used it before.

The ABB didn't last for too long as it only had the three Parahuman members in its group. Without them, the Empire quickly took over without much trouble. Of course, I didn't like the Empire either so I did my best to identify them using my clairvoyance and stop them too. Buts its rather slow going as those senses doesn't give me a clear picture of what's going on and using my power to amplify sounds isn't very practical for wide range surveillance because while my supernatural senses doesn't have a limit on how much I can handle my human ears can't pick up thousands of sounds at the same time.

Anyways, nothing too much eventful happened in the last week other than my trying to taunt the Simurgh coming to me and get into a trap I've set up in orbit. Which she didn't fall for. Whether it's because of her usual thing is undetermined as while she can see me just fine, just as her observations of me suggests. She seemed to always stray away from my artificial orbit whenever I move a bit closer.

Sensing a disturbance in the force nearby, I move to the location. Seeing shadowy mass blocking the Brockton Bay Bank I knew who it, or they were. The Undersiders, the group who wanted to meet up with me tomorrow but yet still attempt this stupidity. Although it may be that they see me as a villain they shouldn't be that assured of my allegiance.

Sensing a group of people in vans tailing a little girl walking away from a house and some group in a house convulsing. I remotely dialed a phone in the house and told the people in the location needs medical emergency.

Focusing back to the little girl I sensed that she was not in immediate danger and so I monitored her in the back of my head and entered the bank into the shadow. In here all of my senses are dulled but my powers are not. I've already felt it from above that it wouldn't affect me and deemed it safe enough to resolve the situation. As Oxygen was practically everywhere with how it permeates every crevasse it didn't disorient me in the slightest. I was already partially blind in my armor as it also covered my eyes in situations I deemed it warranted. Which was almost always so my supernatural senses are as good as my eyes with the exception of colors.

"You know, I don't think that robbing a bank isn't exactly smart here. For one, it's cliché, and there actual heroes who stop such kind of things" I projected my words to everyone.

"Mutie girl!" Grue exclaimed before dispelling the shadow from my eyes.

He and Tattletale walked up to me and seized me up for a moment.

"What are you doing here? And is that a new costume?" He asked me.

My costume is a dull dark red in the night so it wasn't surprising to me that he would think so as my costume is practically glowing red in comparison to his previous encounter. But that question is rather pointless so I rather cut to the chase.

"You seem to be under the impression that I'm a villain. I rather like it when I'm not judged as some transient garment. I'm here to stop you guys and be assured that I will not fail"

They took a step back and Grue was bit shocked but curiously enough Tattletale seemed almost hopeful. Turning to a van approaching the little girl I create a fast responsive oxygen layer around her. TheA number of people tailing her isn't exactly normal and I think somebody paid for her to be kidnapped. Saving her isn't enough, I need to kill him in the most slowest possible way. And I'm confident enough I can protect her until she reaches him.

One of the mutant beasts jumped at me but I stopped him or it in the air while slowly depriving him of air. Not enough to give him brain damage, but enough to render him unconscious.

"No! Stop Bitch! She can and will kill you in in a blink of an eye! Her power isn't Manton limited!" Tattletale yelled at the other girl.

She grunted but refrained from ordering her beasts to attack me. She ran to the unconscious one and watched me at me warily. As she wasn't a danger to me anymore I turn back to Tattletale. She seemed very hesitant now but there was still something there because she walked up to despite the danger.

"Qwaser, right? I- I need your help. I know the extent of your power and I need protection from a villain named Coil. He recruited me at gunpoint and I want to leave. Please" She pleaded.

Her heart rate remained unchanged as she said that so she wasn't lying. I was right to not judge from the start it seemed.

"You're not lying, " I said to assure her.

"A lie detector? No, you checked my heart rate as you listened" She rambled.

"What about the rest of them?" I asked while pointing to the rest of the group.

She focused back to the present and answered me.

"They didn't choose this kind of life. The situations forced them to do this. I'm sure they can be helpful to yo-"

"No, the rest of the Undersiders will drop the money here and leave. And you, you will come with me. Your power seems clear to me now. I have something I want you to look at" I ordered her.

She looked a bit frustrated but refrained from speaking back. Turning to her group she walked up to them.

"Guys, you can't handle her. You need to go back to base and I will contact you as soon as I can" She explained.

"Tt, I don't think this is a good idea. And when were you going to tell us who our employer was?" Grue whispered without much success as I hear everything clearly if I focus on it.

"There isn't much time, the heroes will come soon and I can't negotiate with all this. Leave!"

They hesitated but left with Grue covering their path. Tattletale walked up to me and I watched the people around me on the ground who had fearful but also perplexed expressions.

Glancing at them for a moment I found Panacea in the group with a phone behind her back. Back in the days when I was weak, I would have asked her for treatment, but I've learned to cope with it. Now she is just another person to me.

"I will need to make a suit for you like mine. You won't survive for long if you don't wear it at where I'm going" I told her.

"Fine, fine. Let's just leave" She muttered.

Forming a solid oxygen structure around her with pockets of air preventing her from directly touching the crystal matrix. I lifted her up and we left out the door up into the sky.

And just as I predicted, the kidnapped the girl and are moving to through the city to an abandoned building that was in progress of construction.

They entered through a hidden entrance and move around the unknown underground structure I've sensed a while ago. I assumed it was official but it seemed Bond villains really existed if they were that cliché to make an underground base. Isn't hiding in plain sight a better idea?

They entered some kind of office and a person in a full body suit ordered her into a room that is extremely aggravating to me. Focusing on the sounds I attempt to reconstruct it into my ear.

"Would somebody speak to me, please? I'm blind with this blindfold. Please, I want to go home"A scared voice spoke up.

"Hello Dinah, I'm Coil. You will help me from now on" The now identified villain said to her. No wonder Tattletale wanted to leave that much. I don't want to know what he did to her.

Dinah Bellman? And I must assume Coils identity is Craig Toomy. His physique and voice appear to match. Although a book isn't exactly a great reference.

"I can't escape. No, there is something. It's increasing every second"

Her words seemed to suggest she was some kind of thinker. Is that why she was kidnapped? No, even. A man of such moral fiber can't jut stop at that. The room next to his office suggests otherwise.

Entering the Mother Box, I turned to Tattletale again.

"Say, Tattletale, would Coil ever rape a child?" I asked her calmly after she stopped screaming whilst we rose into the air.

"Wh-why do you ask?" She huffed with her hands on her knees.

"Because he just kidnapped one and seems to be pushing her into a bedroom next to his office" I answered.

"How would- You can sense the air, and that far!?" She exclaimed.

"Just answer the question"

She seems to think for a moment but it didn't take too long before she answered yes.

"Do you need him dead? I can kill him from here now that I've identified him" I asked.

"As much as I would like that can you just keep him contained? I think I can take over his organization and I will be much more useful that way" She gave me an option.

"I can remotely control his body and shut his mouth while simulating his voice, is that what you need?"

"That's perfect! Just do that right now. And also, where are we? I know you can multitask so you can do that too"

"We are in the Mother Box. A dense solid oxygen structure in an artificial orbit around Earth"

"You don't do small, do you? Everything about your power is extremely overpowered. I would say your rating would be more along the lines of Trump Bullshit" She complained halfheartedly.

"Taylor, who is this? Are you cheating on me?" Emma spoke up while springing up to her feet.

"Wow, you are a real mess there girl" Tattletale said in surprise while appraising Emma.

"Well fuck you too whoever you are" Emma spit back while hugging me.

"Can you guys shut the fuck up, I'm working over here" Bakuda grumbled while working on her anti-Enbringer bombs using my Diffusion-Oxygen.

"So that's where she went. I knew you had something to do with the decline of the ABB" Tattletale figured out.

"Not that I have a choice here!" Bakuda complained without much power behind her words. My methods took a toll on her so that was expected.

"You know, the more that I'm here the more I'm starting to regret it" Tattletale said nervously seemingly starting to realize something. Her powers are better than I expected if she figured that much out from the behavior of my companions.

"What did you want me to figure out anyways? You mentioned that in the bank" She asked.

"I need your help in setting up a trap for the Simurgh so that we can kill her" I explained without much preamble.

"Oh"

EXE

"Sir, what do you want us to do again?" Askek the mercenary asked.

"I told you, I need you to appraise me if you find any evidence of the Langoliers. They are a greater threat than the Endbringers and I need to be sure they aren't occupying this world"

"Fine, we will leave you to it sir" He sighed while rubbing his eyes.

"Dinah, do you sense the Langoliers?" Coil asked.

"What are you talking about you crazy snakehead! Let me go!" She yelled.

The rest of the people looked at each other's eyes but didn't say anything. He paid them to ignore his weird actions and so they did. Whilst walking out of the door.


	5. Tentatively Canon Origin

EXE

I'm Doctor Lacrimosa Malak, which roughly translates to weeping angel. Yeah, my mother was like that. Saw me crying right out of her womb and already bringing up the first thing on her mind. And not one second later that was to become my name. Of course, she had to die one year later because of a brain tumor.

In that case, my father would take over. But, there was only one problem. My mother was a virgin. She never had sexual intercourse. Parthenogenesis they called it. Mary herself would have been proud, not that I believed she existed. But in spite of that, I do believe in the supernatural. Minus the 'super' part of course. It isn't supernal anymore when it actually occurs in reality. Then its simply 'natural'. Even if theoretical models can't explain it, conceptual physics still does. That is my specialty. A sort of physics that reaches beyond the boundaries of the box that we live in called the universe.

I currently reside in the Miskatonic university researching various things without much of a purpose beyond gaining knowledge. I had a girlfriend a few months back but she left because I was more interest in tomes and grimoires than her. Of course, I didn't really care that she left. She was pretty much right that I loved my library more than I loved her.

Well, maybe I loved my pet more than my books. But its a close call. My pet isn't a dog or a cat or anything as simple as that. My pet and friend is a Shoggoth. A servitor race created by the Old Ones. I found her/him? In an underground lake under a mountain at Yellowstone. The rest of the university wanted to dissect him but I put a stop to that with my boom stick. An advanced rifle that I found alongside Dunsany the Shoggoth. That underground lake was a cache of some sorts of the technology of the old ones, which I promptly raided.

Besides the weapons, I picked up they also had a genetic sequencer from what I gathered. It is some kind of radiation gun that can change the genetic structure of any organism. Its programming is pretty alien so I haven't done much with it beyond creating weird plants that defied logic as the rest of the humans know it. Okay, also maybe a bit of self-experimentation. Nothing beyond strengthening my own features instead of adding features. Such as carbon rich bones that were as strong as steel and still flexible as normal bone. Also a greatly enhanced metabolism and a genetic structure that is practicably immune to mutation and can replicate itself endlessly based on Dunsany's biological data.

I must admit, maybe making myself immortal was a bit aberrant. But I read too much literature of people who got bored of being immortal that I need to debunk that horse manure. I know too much about brain chemistry to fall for something like that. Its just something people concocted to assuage their fear of death so I didn't think about it too much.

Anyways. Now I'm just sitting in my office, researching the intranet of the Arkham archaeological department on my laptop. Not that I'm getting much out of it. Other than the chair bought from S-Mart being rather uncomfortable when you sit on it too long.

On what I'm searching? Well, I had a friend in rural Tennessee called Chris Roberts who really was obsessed over a legendary Grimoire he found a clue on a few months back. He was close but he needed my credentials to go through all the legal shenanigans in Massachusetts.

Hearing a ping from my laptop I open up the message from Chris, mentioning a ship called The Vigilant that transported a weird book from the middle east. Searching through the archaeological records I found only one mention of the ship. And its a diary from Captain Ashton Stones of The Emma.

Apparently The Vigilant sank in a heavy storm that appeared from out of nowhere but not before The Emma rescued one survivor who clung on a book with religious fervor. The captain also mentioned that the person recited a weird set of words until he died one week later. He didn't know what to do with the book so he gave it as a gift to Professor Nya Daigun fifteen years ago. A female eastern professor that came here a long time ago and now hang around the university seemingly without a clear purpose. Not like that was strange as most people here didn't do much here either. They can call it studying as much as they want but knowledge needs to be used. Not just accumulated. That's why I always go on expeditions using clues referenced in many fictional books and diaries. And it never failed me to find something esoteric.

"Tekeli-li!" A voice cried out before a slimy transparent yellow jello covered my head.

I didn't panic as this was a usual behavior of Dunsany. Lifting him up from my head I put him in my lap. His mono eye looking up at me in adoration.

"I just got a new clue. You want to come with me, buddy?" I asked him.

He shuddered for a moment and morphed his body to go inside my jacket and wrap around my body. His eye stalk peeking out of my collar.

"I'll take that as yes, now just grabbing my field equipment. Can't leave it here outside of my sight. Can't count how many times people broke into my office to get my research and Elder technology" I told him.

Grabbing the Field Effect Rifle from my wall mount, I collapse it in a portable form and insert it in my inner jacket pocket. Alongside the genetic sequencer, I also grabbed the dimensional storage cube which I hid in most of the valuable stuff but can't be used right now because of my limited understanding of the tech.

Walking up to my door I looked back at my office slash home the past ten years and can't help but feel a bit of dread for no reason. Suppressing the feeling I closed and locked it up. Walking away to the west section of the uni five hundred meters from the central courtyard where Nya lives.

EXE

It's been four thousand years since I met Nya and married her a year later. Apparently, the book Chris was looking for actually belonged to Nya a thousand years back when Abdul Alhazred passed it on to her for unexplained reasons. Of course, such a book had a tendency to go missing once in a while but it always goes back to its master if no worthwhile practitioner is found.

But I really wanted the Grimoire. So her refusal to give it to me really didn't stop me from bribing her and threatening her up until I am begging on my knees. As that didn't really work I changed tactics and started to court her instead. A few weeks later and she was so amused that she actually accepted my lackluster proposal I've done as a final effort.

Before we went to marry she revealed her true identity. I think she wanted to scare me for her amusement but I wasn't that surprised. Not many people walking around living thousands of years and possessing artifacts so rare and powerful that people would kill their wife and kids for it.

Nyarlathotep is her name as figured. The will of the churning chaos. The voice of the Outer gods and all around a generally nice woman who derives amusement from watching us crawl and scurry like ants. You know, like most woman do.

My situation is equally as amusing to me too. Me, an above average mad magician marrying an entity so powerful she could undo my existence on a whim. But to be honest, I think I liked the danger and challenge. And the rewards for my commitment is just the cherry on top of the icing.

For one I have access to the original Kitab Al-Azif. The Necronomicon. From its pages, there is an ocean of lost knowledge. From the science of the Great Race of Yith to the most depraved summoning rituals to have ever existed.

I also travel around the universe at will as I wish. Such as going to a place called Abbith, an apparent Stellar Sphere sustaining a micro-universe inside where it housed her original body. It's size too great and powerful to occupy our own universe. It is also there it kept the Gate of Incomprehensible Dimensions held up with Yog-Sothoths power, where on the other side the Court of Azathot lies. The historical data referenced that he lies at the center at the universe but considering the universe has no origin center. Well, the center based on the speed of light and the eleven dimensions at least. I'm pretty sure if you placed a rope at the edge of the universe and traveled to the other side with the rope the center would be at the middle of the rope. Or this my limited Euclidean understanding at work?

Anyways, Nya did not care much for Azathoth or her original body. After all, what's the point of everything if everything is destroyed. That's why she rather sit quietly at the back of universe scheming and plotting things for fun until Azathoth awakens.

Or that was supposed to be her plan, I myself am immortal and planned to be that way… Forever. And for all of her intelligence and supposed eldritch thinking, she hasn't managed to do what I did. I unraveled the multiverse and opened up access to higher infinities. So far up and away that we exited the Dream and entered a universe, not in Azathoth's reach.

Now we are just void walkers. Traveling the multiversal clusters for interesting sights and events. Taking with us her original body along side the solar system sized Stellar Sphere that made up the micro-verse where she resides.

We are currently residing in a universe where Earth formed almost exactly like ours without the addition of magic and extraterrestrial presences. Up until an anomaly occurred where we detected a rift in dimensions opening up multiple cracks to other realities. In these crack, we found two in what might be considered outer gods if weren't for the fact that they still seemed to follow the possible applied science without breaking them. They also had no extra-physical presence in the Ether so that made us sure that they were just an advanced race evolved to grow without rhyme or reason. A perpetual growing Rube Goldberg machine as it is. Or maybe that's all civilizations?

We watched as one fake god died as a young teen killed it after she got possession of ones of its multidimensional organs that contained the power of some kind of analytical computer that can predict the future using classical physics. A Game Theory machine as it is.

The one god still remained for unknown reasons and donned a guise of a hero after talking to a homeless person. Why the teen didn't kill him can't be explained until we actually bothered to look into it more. Which we did after learning that conflict is brewing on Earth. The people playing some kind of stupid game to the detriment of society. And the appearance of the fake Great Old Ones also didn't help my opinion of this universe. Nya didn't care much but she let me do whatever I want. I always made the entire party greater, like oil on fire she said. So I interfered slightly to stir up the hornets a bit while improving the game they're playing.

Hijacking one of the source of its powers I ripped it off from the network and remade it anew. Now improved with a stellar core as its power source and made more efficient by technological enhancements throughout its being. The four fundamental forces were at its command and the rest I stripped away with the control center replaced with a clone of Dunsany who split himself into millions of copies a few hundred years back.

I could have fixed the world up in an instant but that would be rather boring, for me and for Nya. So we would see if a champion can do the job for us. The prerequisites I searched for the wielder is righteous anger and the will to do something to change the status quo. There were more factors at hand but that would take too long to explain. But the gist of it is that it will only land in the hands of the one who needs it the most and one whose ideals represents us. Not evil nor good, but something else.

EXE


End file.
